The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective

Book excerpt: Today's heated debates over social issues such as abortion, birth control, ethnicity, immigration, race, religion, sexual behavior, and welfare did not begin in the 1960s. They began in the last years of the nineteenth century and reached their zenith in the 1920s, when this book sold over 200,000 copies. Here is all the text of Margaret Sanger's 1922 best-seller along with 31 chapters by her contemporaries to set what she advocated in historical perspective. This is not history told after the fire and passion have died out. These are words spoken in the heat of battle, at a time when Sanger and others believed that the fate of civilization depended on their ideas winning acceptance here and around the world.